“I just cannot understand how a human being could do this to another human being,” said Pillay’s son, Durrel Singh, 27, of Sea Cow Lake.

“Almost his entire body was covered in burns. He was unrecognisable. I did not know how to react,” he said.

“Despite being in excruciating pain, he somehow managed to tell me that a police car had arrived at his home (in Redfern) soon after he returned from work. He said the officer and another man instructed him to accompany them (to a home in Berrystone Road).

“They took him to a house where two men, who were known to him, had been waiting. He mentioned their names.”

His father, he said, had been assaulted.

“They kicked and punched him on his face and body before one of them poured a 5-litre can of petrol over him and set him alight.”